Fallout (2d20 RPG)

Posted on February 28, 2024 by hccummings

The last time I updated this blog, we’d just finished our Pathfinder Ptolus play test (i.e. a test to see how we all liked Pathfinder 2e as a replacement for D&D 5e on the heels of WotC OGL debacle). Now, some people think that because Hasbro/WotC backed down, released D&D 5e under Creative Commons, and otherwise tried to mend fences, that everything is hunky-dory now. Some people didn’t care one way or another. However, I have seen enough shenanigans from WotC that the OGL debacle burned the last bridge for me and I am no longer willing to give them money. I personally feel I can achieve a D&D feel with a different system, particularly one that was designed to feel like D&D in the first place, like Pathfinder.

We found Pathfinder 1e to be a bit too rules-heavy (i.e crunch). I don’t know that Pathfinder 2e is a lighter system, but  it’s organized differently and streamlined, taking it further away from its roots as D&D 3.75 and more towards being it’s own game. To me, as a GM, it’s easier to run and understand than Pathfinder 1e was, plus Paizo is unionized and has developed their own gaming license, ORC. Whether we’ll stick with Pathfinder 2e as our fantasy system of choice going forward has yet to be determined. If PF2 doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll give Savage Worlds a try. If all else fails, we can return to D&D 5E, but it will be time-locked to only use the rules I have and whatever 3rd party supplements have Foundry VTT support. I will not be returning to D&D Beyond, nor will I adopt WotC’s walled garden VTT, whatever that ends up being.

Anyway, after the Pathfinder Ptolus play test, we elected to follow tradition by playing something different. I’ve found it helps prevent burnout to alternate between a Fantasy RPG and something different. So, I ran a campaign of Modiphius’s Fallout RPG. Most of us in the group were very familiar with Fallout. I’ve played the Fallout CRPGs since the first Fallout came out in 1997.

The campaign, Rangers of the Wasteland, featured five characters:
Fran – A Mister Handy (Miss Nanny)
Jackson “Wraith” Wilson – A ghoul mercenary/sniper
Kruul – A Super Mutant bruiser
Dr. Devi Nok – A Mister Handy (Mister Orderly)
Draven Steele – A smooth-talking gunslinger

The problem with naming a campaign ahead of time is that player-driven developments can shift the focus to places that take you away from your original idea, so they ended up not actually becoming NCR (New California Republic) Rangers or even interacting with the NCR much at all past the first couple of sessions and the very last session. I also had an idea for some super mutants finding an EMP device and being a menace with that, but that didn’t last past the first time I gave a hint because I realized that plot line would probably render two characters completely ineffective for the majority of the time they were engaged with it (I come up with the concept before I knew there would be two robots in the group, so I dropped it once I realized repeated and sustained EMPs would quickly cease to be a fun challenge and would instead be tedious and unfun).

A screenshot from Google Maps showing Holbrook AZ standing in for Terminus.

Terminus and environs

Ultimately, they went on a search for a GECK and after 8 (I think) session, found one in a vault, and activated it in the region of Holbrook, AZ. Ultimately, we only got in 8 sessions between April 7, 2023 and January 12, 2024, which made me feel like the game was cursed and I struggled to get a handle on the system with so many cancellations and postponements.

I have mixed feeling about Modiphius’s Fallout RPG. The game itself has a look that really evokes the computer games. So, it looks and feels like Fallout. It’s heavily influenced by Fallout 4, though, so you have to do some home brewing to fit it into the American SW/California region where earlier Fallout games (including New Vegas, which remains one of the most popular modern-era Fallout games). The decision to leave Robobrains out is a little baffling, since they do appear in Fallout 4 (though I don’t recall whether they appear in the base game or they were added with the Automatron DLC).

Playing it on a Virtual Tabletop (Foundry is my VTT of choice) helped with a lot of the mechanics, but there are a lot of scavenging and and crafting mechanics in the game which are definitely more suited to face-to-face tabletop play. And since crafting and Workshop mode was a large element of Fallout 4, Modiphius attempted to incorporate that into the tabletop RPG. Which… is fine, but if your campaign doesn’t use those elements, you see how integrated they are into the rest of the rules. I felt like something was missing from our game, as a result. That sort of community building (where you construct entire communities from scrap) works well in computer games, but I prefer that sort of thing to be abstracted in my tabletop RPGs. I don’t necessarily find it fun to make skill rolls and calculate passage of time to see how long it takes to build the wall around your community of semi-trailer houses and whatnot, or track how much and what kind of scrap you can salvage from an area. I don’t think it really added anything to the campaign.

An image of a post-apocalyptic trading post (artist unknown)

Mr. Atomic Trading Post

That doesn’t mean there aren’t campaigns styles where that wouldn’t be valuable. But, if I run it again, I would know better than to try to incorporate crafting and community building and I think I would just handwave things like weapon mods and repair parts and things like that. It’s a lot of accounting, otherwise, especially with all the foods, beverages, chems, and other minutiae to track. One of my players was keeping a spreadsheet. That’s not the kind of game I want to play. Clearly, the developers found Fallout 4’s survival mode and Workshop functions to be the most fun part of the game, where I like the exploration and progressing through the stories more (my Fallout 4 review from 2016 has an entire mini-rant about the workshop controls being an accessibility fail).

A screen shot from Fallout: New Vegas with VTT tokens overlaid

A wilderness encounter with a deathclaw

Switching from the tactical, mini-based combat style of D&D took a few sessions to get used to, too. I realized after the first session that the range bands and other abstractions of the 2d20 system meant trying to set up battlemaps with miniatures was pointless, and in fact, caused confusion since the system doesn’t really support that kind of tactical combat. Of course, it meant finding backgrounds became as simple as a Google image search and I could just plop the appropriate tokens on there to have a visual reference for the numbers and types of opponents. The role-playing aspect of the game is fairly well supported by the rules, so if you have a role-play heavy group, a lot of the issues I had probably won’t come up, but of all of us who played the Fallout computer games extensively, I don’t think any of us ever tried a pacifist run, because that’s not really how those games are intended to be played.

In preparation for this campaign, I played Fallout 3 and New Vegas again, using the Tale of Two Wastelands mod, which incorporates Fallout 3 into Fallout: New Vegas as a mod and lets you freely move back and forth between the Mojave and Capital Wastelands using the same character to complete both games (after you unlock the train station). In 2016, I said I preferred Fallout 3’s Capital Wasteland to the Mojave. After playing Fallout 3 again, I no longer feel that way and put New Vegas on top of the other modern-era Fallout titles (so New Vegas -> Fallout 4 -> Fallout 3 -> Fallout 76 ——> New Vegas: Dead Money DLC still sucks). It’s also a LOT easier to find suitable images for use on a VTT of the American SW as a setting, than of something like the Capital Wasteland or the Commonwealth (in which I’d have to use in-game images from Fallout 3 or 4 because I can’t just bomb a major city to get the look I want for a game), or of my preferred local setting (believe it or not, it’s really hard to find reference images of Indianapolis as a ruined wasteland). This is a really good argument to run the Fallout RPG as full theater-of-the-mind, rather than trying to use visual aids in a VTT.

Maybe if we hadn’t had to cancel so many games and I could have had some continuity of play, I would have enjoyed it more. This was my first experience running the Modiphius 2d20 system, so maybe I just bounced off of that. Sometimes, I felt like the system was fighting me as a GM, something I didn’t experience when I ran Fallout one-shots using Fate Accelerated (now that took some homebrewing, but it was dead easy) or Fantasy Flight’s Genesys system, but that could just be because we’d often have 4-6 weeks in between games. I would be interested in trying a Fallout-style game again using Monte Cook Games’ Cypher System supplement Rust and Redemption, and I am not going to rule out running the 2d20 system again. And now that I’ve entered so much of the equipment, perks, and such into Foundry (someone else set up the core rules module in Foundry, but it really just an automated combat engine), it seems a shame to let all that effort go to waste. Modiphius elected, sometime after we started, to officially support Roll20, but Roll20 can suffer from connectivity issues during peak times and… I really did not want to have to purchase yet another copy of the game to be able to play it.

As for the next game? Well, we’ve already started my Pathfinder 2e Ptolus game, a direction continuation of the Mask of the Fire Lord campaign. Ptolus has been “rescued” from the Astral Sea and has found a new home on the world of Calliome. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the world in which my fantasy novels take place. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to do a session-by-session recap here on the blog. I know it’s useful for my players (when they read it), but I didn’t miss writing it up for the Fallout game.

Categories: D&D, Fallout, Pathfinder | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Ptolus: Interlude – Session 4

Posted on April 3, 2023 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Merisiel, Whisper Elf Rogue
  • Valera, Skilled Human Fighter
  • Feiya, Versatile Human Witch
  • Jirelle, Half-Elf Swashbuckler

Once the group healed up as best they could, they continued their explorations and came across a body in the next room. The amulet they’d acquired from the graverobber in the necropolis exerted a strange influence on Feiya, but she shrugged it off. They confirmed the body’s identity as Dorn Grue using citizenship papers they found in his pack. A brief discussion ensued in which they contemplated returning with just Grue’s head until Valera pointed out she could carry the entire body with ease.

Rather than continue their explorations, they dragged Dorn Grue’s body back to the Delver’s Guild and accepted their pay, minus one year’s dues as Gorti informed them she learned she couldn’t sub-contract corpse retrieval work. They begrudgingly accept the slightly less pay, since it was still much more money than they had before and decided to seek out Mariska Kath to offer to retrieve the corpse of her husband Roland, per her notice in The Courier.

They learned Mariska’s husband had left to explore Dwarvenhearth to seek riches. After consulting with the Delver’s Guild library, they found a route to Dwarvenhearth under Old Town and proceeded to search for him. They found him, or a lifelike statue of him in a library overseen by a medusa calling herself the Stone-Gaze Sage. She let them take restore Mariska’s husband on the condition that he never return to her library. When they returned him to Mariska, the woman seemed less than enthused that her husband was still alive, but paid the promised reward, nonetheless. As they left the unhappy couple, the amulet made its presence known again and they changed course and sought out the church of Gaen, goddess of light.

There, a priest determined that the amulet possessed both a necromantic and an enchantment aura and determined that it should be purified as it was not safe. With the priest’s aid, they were able to gather the resources necessary to purge the evil spirit from the amulet and save themselves, or someone else, what surely would have been a very nasty case of possession.

I appreciate that my players were interested enough in some of the things I put in the broadsheet that it took them completely off course, so I had to get a little heavy-handed with the cursed amulet thing so I could wrap this Intro to Pathfinder 2e thing up during this fourth session. When we next revisit this system, we will likely be rejoining the Prancing Prowlers as Ptolus gets settled into a new home.

Next up for the group, is Fallout. I don’t know how many sessions we’ll be playing, but I expect it will take us through the summer. We’ll be using Modiphius’s official Fallout RPG and their 2d20 system, which is new to just about all of us, so I expect the first couple of sessions to be slow-going.

Note: I don’t get kickbacks anymore if you use this link to go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing), but I still appreciate the sales.

Categories: Pathfinder | Tags: , , , , , ,

Ptolus: Interlude – Session 3

Posted on March 19, 2023 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Merisiel, Whisper Elf Rogue
  • Valera, Skilled Human Fighter
  • Feiya, Versatile Human Witch
  • Jirelle, Half-Elf Swashbuckler
  • Lini, Gnome Druid

After leaving the Necropolis, the group decided to head to Delver’s Square to see about getting the runes they’d found applied to their weapons and armor. While they found, to their dismay, that they didn’t have enough money for even one application, let alone several, both Rastor’s Weapons and the Bull & Bear Armory were willing to advance them some credit. They left their gear overnight and grabbed dinner at the Ghostly Minstrel. While there, a boy came in selling special editions of The Courier.

While news of the Iron Mage’s return was interesting, as well as the information about a city-wide vote regarding the relocation of Ptolus from the Astral Plane, what drew their attention most was the apparent need of the Delver’s Guild for people to retrieve members’ bodies from The Dungeon. They resolved to go to the Delvers’ Guild office first thing after getting their armor and weapons back.

At the Delver’s Guild office, the woman in charge, Gorti Jurgen, seemed skeptical of them at first, but they were able to convince her they were experienced enough delvers to do a few corpse runs to help out the guild as subcontractors. She gave them a set of directions to find their first deceased delver: Dorn Grue.

Following the directions, they found themselves in a section of The Dungeon called Ghul’s Labyrinth. At that point, their directions provided no further guidance, so they began to explore. They avoided a few traps, failed to avoid a few others, and found themselves in a wide corridor surrounded a large central column. From around the column slithered an abhorrent monstrosity resembling an unholy cross between a giant slug and a man.

They eventually defeated the grothlut and took time to tend to their wounds before continuing their search…

We didn’t get quite as much done as I’d hoped this session, due to some tech issues. At least we got them solved and now I know how to deal with that particular issue should it arise again.

Of course, the group latched on to something in the Broadsheet that was almost a sort of throwaway reference. I didn’t have anything at all prepared for them to go in that direction. But I did have a plug-in for Foundry called DunGen. This app randomly generates dungeon or cavern layout maps based on parameters you set. The Foundry add-on will create the map right in Foundry in just a few seconds. Saved my butt. While the players were talking and planning their next move, I was able to create the map and throw in a few challenges. Then, after the sessions, I was able to go back and fill in the walls and such so it’ll be better prepared for the next session (joining the Patreon will apparently add functionality to automatically set up walls and such in Foundry).

When players go off in an unexpected direction in a face-to-face game, especially if you have stacks and stacks of maps and other props, it’s usually not that big of a deal. But if you’re playing on a virtual table top, creating those resources and getting them into the VTT is not trivial. DunGen is a game-changer for me. Unfortunately, I can’t really use the dungeon layout in anything but fantasy since it only have stone textures. I can probably use the caves in a Fallout game a bit.

Speaking of which, I’m anticipating the next session will be the final session of this Ptolus interlude, after which we will likely switch to a different game for a new campaign, most likely Fallout.

Note: I don’t get any royalties or kickbacks from HeroForge or DunGen. I don’t even get kickbacks anymore if you go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing).

Categories: Pathfinder | Tags: , , , , , ,

Ptolus: Interlude – Session 2

Posted on March 5, 2023 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Merisiel, Whisper Elf Rogue
  • Valera, Skilled Human Fighter
  • Feiya, Versatile Human Witch
  • Jirelle, Half-Elf Swashbuckler
  • Lini, Gnome Druid

Several days after their escapades with the baby-stealing goblins, Merisiel, Valera, and Feiya received a request to return to the theater. There, they met with a few other patrons who helped fight off the goblins and the theater owner presented them with a reward: a basket full of various elixirs and potions gathered from the dead goblins as well as gold donated by the theater’s players. He also handed them several pieces of scrip: crudely-fashioned metal coins stamped with odd runes.

Feiya found something familiar about the runes on the scrip, after a few moments, she realized they resembled symbols used by the Forsaken. The group decided to investigate the Necropolis since they’d heard the Forsaken all left during the trouble with the Cult of Imix a few months prior, and since it was the middle of the day, the Necropolis should be fairly safe.

On a hunch, Lini had her badger companion, Mini, smell some of the items handled by the goblins and Mini took off following a scent. The badger led them through the graves to a mausoleum. No soon than they attempted to jimmy the lock on the iron gate, than skeletons emerged from the bushes and a floating head descended from a nook above the door to attack. It didn’t take the group long to realize their piercing and slashing weapons were ineffective against enemies with no flesh, but they persisted and eventually smashed their bony foes to bits.

Once inside the mausoleum, they descended into a surprisingly large crypt. Nothing seemed amiss, however, when they attempted to breach the gates leading deeper into the crypt, more skeletons, crawling hands, and floating heads attacked. During the fight, they found a raggedy hobgoblin bashing a shovel against another iron gate. He joined the fray, but eventually, our heroes were victorious. They investigated the gate he seemed intent upon opening and found two nasty-looking creatures with elongated nails and long tongues, perfect for sucking marrow from cracked bones trying to escape. For a moment, Jirelle seemed intent upon opening the gate to fight the ghouls hand-to-hand, until Merisiel and Lini reminded him they could just fire arrows through the gate.

After turning the ghouls into pincushions, they took stock of what the hobgoblin had been doing. All they found that resembled a clue was an amulet with a glowing green gem whose markings matched those on the goblin scrip. They headed back to the surface and left the Necropolis to contemplate what it could mean…

I don’t have a whole lot of commentary for this session. We met, we played, didn’t get off track too often. It was a good time. I’m anticipating two more sessions before we decide whether or not to take a break from fantasy for a short campaign in a different genre (I’m leaning toward Fallout right now, but am open to other suggestions from the group, depending how Foundry support is).

Note: I don’t get any royalties or kickbacks from HeroForge. I don’t even get kickbacks anymore if you go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing).

Categories: Pathfinder | Tags: , , , , ,

Ptolus: Interlude – Session 1

Posted on February 16, 2023 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Merisiel, Whisper Elf Rogue
  • Valera, Skilled Human Fighter
  • Feiya, Versatile Human Witch

Several months after the defeat of the Cult of Imix, three young adventurers took a night to attend a theatrical performance at the Vaderast-Bridge Playhouse in Midtown. As they waited for the play to begin, they perused the latest copy of The Courier*. A few stories caught their eyes, like the reports of increased undead activity in the Necropolis and the reports of a serial murderer preying upon children in the Warrens.

They had no time to further contemplate these news items, though, as the play began when Aramil Amakiir the Fae-kin strode out on stage and spun a tale about how he, a simple monk called Loren, found himself trapped in Ptolus following the Night of Dissolution**. During the performance, goblins, disguised as short performers, attacked! The three leapt into action to defend the theater patrons, joined by a priestess who was also attending the show. The group fought their way down to the first floor as one of the goblins cackled and set fire to the stage curtains.

Just as they thought they’d eliminate the last of the goblins, they heard a cry of triumph from the lobby. “Ha ha! We stole da’ baby! We’s gonna eat tonight!” While Feiya, Valera, and the priestess fought goblins in the lobby, Merisiel ran after the baby-thief. She chased the goblin into the street and was soon followed by her friends. A chase ensued and they caught up to the goblin near the entrance to the sewer, wresting the wailing infant away from him. While they secured the baby, the goblin escaped, diving into the sewer entrance. They handed the baby off to the priestess and followed.

Sliding down a sluice through the muck, they emerged in a relative dry section that appeared to be part of Ptolus’s Dungeon. They trailed a blood trail left by the goblin until they found the creature with a friend and a pet rust monster. Wary of the rust monster’s destructive abilities, they avoided it while dealing with the goblins. Fortunately, the metal weapons dropped by the dead goblins proved enough of a distraction that they were able to search the goblins for clues, then retreat from The Dungeon and return to the relative safety of Ptolus’s streets.

And so we begin anew. Sort of. This short interlude series of adventures takes place after my Mask of the Fire Lord campaign, but before the new one. I had to wrap things up a little early due to some personal issues that arose during the game, but we still got through most of what I wanted

This was my group’s first experience with Pathfinder, 2nd edition. I think it went pretty well, all things considered. They liked Hero Points better than 5e’s Inspiration mechanic, and everyone seemed to click into the 3 Action Economy of Pathfinder with no trouble. I found the codified nature of the 3 Action Economy easier to keep track of as a GM, too, especially when using adversaries with multiple abilities. At-a-glance I could tell what my options were and how many actions each one would take. Of course, even low-level 1st edition Pathfinder was relatively easy; I’ll have to see if it holds up at the PCs and their adversaries increase in level.

We’ll continue with these characters and this interlude for a few more sessions, I’m thinking a total of 3 or 4. Then we’ll decide if we want to go ahead and return to the adventures of the Prancing Prowlers, rebuilt for Pathfinder 2e (and possible with some new allies), or play a different game for a bit before returning to a fantasy game (as per our custom). If we chose to play a different game for a bit, it will likely be Fallout, but I won’t discount the possibility that something else will come up.

* Keep in mind when reading this, this is a Ptolus which barely survived the Night of Dissolution by being ripped from Praemal and cast adrift in the Astral Sea. Hopefully, they won’t get spoiled by the few broadsheets I’m going to create; creating even a single page fake newspaper is a lot of work, and you risk putting something in there they’ll latch on to and assign more importance than you’re willing to do. Not that that has ever happened to me. And I did recycle some stories from an earlier Ptolus campaign.

** I won’t put it all here verbatim, but essentially, he and his troupe performed a play based on the events of the last campaign with a lot of the names changed.

Note: I don’t get any royalties or kickbacks from HeroForge. I don’t even get kickbacks anymore if you go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing).

Categories: Pathfinder | Tags: , , , , ,

Ptolus: Mask of the Fire Lord – Session 25

Posted on February 2, 2023 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Raven Withrethin, an elf rogue
  • Asclepius (Sklee), a yuan-ti pureblood paladin rehabilitated for civilization by the Brotherhood of Redemption
  • Loriwyn “Wyn” Thistlefoot, a gnome monk trapped in Ptolus during the Night of Dissolution
  • Larx Voss, a changling sorcerer

The Prowlers formed a tentative plan to attend the negotiation as a way to gain access to the inner sanctum of the cult and end the threat, once and for all. The Commissar wanted them to hear the cult out, but the city was not willing to cut a deal with the cult that didn’t involve their immediate cessation of activities and total withdrawal. Firellia gave them an enchanted gemstone with which she could scry upon them and told them she would use at the right time to teleport herself and backup to the Prowlers’ location to help defeat the cult.

They spent a few days researching Prince Imix and what the elemental’s interest in Ptolus could be. From their research, they gleaned that Imix was interested in the Mask of the Fire Lord, a powerful artifact that was once housed in the Banewarrens. They also determined that all of the artifacts and relics in the Banewarrens had been drained of magic and destroyed in the efforts to save the city during the Night of Dissolution; what the cult wanted wasn’t in Ptolus at all.

The Mask of the Fire Lord couldn’t be permanently destroyed on the Prime Material plane, of course, so it was likely in the process of reforming on its native plane, the Elemental Plane of Fire. As an artifact, it was unable to be scryed upon, so it’s possible Imix was just looking in its last known location. The Prowlers formulated a new plan: their allies would attend the meeting disguised as them while they found a way to travel to the Plane of Fire and bring this information directly to the Prince of Fire and barring that, killing him in his palace. They decided to enlist the aid of a group they knew were both powerful and had a vested interest in not seeing the city destroyed: the Forsaken and Fallen of the Necropolis.

They hired a carriage to take them to the Necropolis and walked the rest of the way to the Dark Reliquary. Secure in their home, the Forsaken saw no reason not to allow the group an audience and they soon found themselves meeting with the very sullen, morose, de-facto leader of the Forsaken and the Fallen, Raguel. He was more blue than usual; since the Night of Dissolution, Lilith had abandoned him and Ptolus and despite the chains binding outsiders to Ptolus being broken, he had been unable to leave. He was able to open planar portals just fine now, but found himself unable to pass through. They cut a deal with him; the Forsaken would accompany them to the Plane of Fire and they would find a way to restore the Spelljamming Helm of the Prancing Prowler and physically take him away from Ptolus.

Raguel hadn’t tried simply physically leaving the city; he didn’t want to float endlessly in the Astral Sea, but was not aware the Prancing Prowler potentially held the capability of physical planar travel in that fashion. He agreed.

The Prowlers returned to the Commissar and filled him and their allies in on the plan. One thing remained: they had to find a way to return home after confronting Imix. Andralia had a tablet that, when broken, would create a temporary teleportation circle, unfortunately, it would only work within the plane where the receiving teleportation circle was created. She did think of another possibility, though, but it would not be cheap. Not wanting to waste any more time, the Commissar excused himself for a moment. When he returned, he carried a chest containing 25,000 gold talons and gave it to the Prowlers to acquire a means of return.

A black-skinned tiefling with red hair wearing a green dress in a town square

Firelia Emberskin, in her tiefling form (created in HeroForge)

Andralia took them to Firellia’s house. Loka answered the door. The Azer was surprised to see them, but let them in and said Firellia left instructions not to be disturbed. Andralia didn’t seem concerned as she led them into Firellia’s basement, then through a series of tunnels into an enormous cavern. The cavern was filled with piles of gold and treasure. Sitting atop it: a red dragon.

The dragon was none too pleased to see Andralia and in a tone unmistakably Firellia’s she admonished the elf for revealing her secret to the Prowlers. They bravely interrupted her ranting to present their request and the gold in exchange. Firellia huffed, but produced a scrolls and flicked it to the group before claiming the chest of gold and adding it to her pile. Larx examined it and discovered she’d given them a scroll containing the Plane Shift spell.

They left Firellia to brood and began their final preparations. They met up with The Ravager, then returned to Raguel in the Necropolis. They found him standing by with a veritable army of the Forsaken. He opened the portal and the Forsaken charged through into the Plane of Fire. A still from The Simpsons episode "Das Bus" (1998). Ralph Wiggum writhes on the ground in pain after eating purple berries. The subtitle reads "They taste like burning.)Meanwhile, the Prowlers ate the scorpion tail peppers and after most of them doubled over in pain and discomfort from the absolute hell the raw peppers unleashed in their mouths, they entered the portal themselves.

The Forsaken battled elementals and salamanders while the Prowlers traversed the fiery plane toward a palace of brass in the distance. When they arrived, they found the massive double doors locked, but Raven spotted a wicket gate in one of the doors and picked the lock on that, allowing them entry.

When they entered, they found themselves at the feet of a towering efreet. He demanded to know who they were and demanded a reason to not incinerate them on the spot. They explained the plight of Ptolus and the fact that the Mask of the Fire Lord no longer existed in the city.

Ascelpius created a Zone of Truth to verify their claims, since they had no way of proving what they said. Imix’s Vizier accepted this and ordered an immediate withdrawal of all of Imix’s forces from Ptolus. In time, the mask would reform on the plane of fire and there was no reason to continue to waste resources searching the city for it. The Vizier then told the Prowlers to get out and return to their home.

They obliged.

They returned to Ptolus and headed for the Chamber of Longing, hoping to catch up with their disguised allies and apprehend any remaining cult members. They found no one in the Chamber of Longing and their inquiries in the Undercity Market and the Ghostly Minstrel turned up no useful information. Finally, they paid for a shadow sending to contact Andralia to inquire about their status. After a short time, Andralia sent a message back stating they were on their way back and to meet up at Dalengard.

The Prowlers reunited with Andralia, Firellia, Loka, and their other allies. As the Vizier indicated, the cult had retreated from Ptolus, and the retreat mid-battle in Flame Greydon’s sanctuary made their jobs much easier.

The Cult of Imix’s plans for Ptolus were thwarted and the city was safe again. The Prowlers were each rewarded with 10,000 gold talons and granted the titles of Lords and Ladies Rosegate, Protectors of Ptolus. Invitations from noble houses to join them for tea and dinners rolled in and the Prancing Prowlers enjoyed their well-earned rest.

For now…

And thus ends Mask of the Fire Lord. I had a bunch of stuff planned, none of which included cutting a deal with the folks in the Necropolis and traveling into the Plane of Fire, so probably 75% of my prep went out the window the instant they decided to enlist in Raguel’s aid. Originally, I had planned an excursion into the Plane of Fire, but I found myself needing to wrap up the campaign before they gained another half-a-dozen plus levels, so I had to alter my plans, a bit. The group did a complete end run around the cult leaders, and I spent most of the last session wildly improvising, but it all worked out in the end. I was worried about a campaign-ending encounter being able to be resolved without combat (which was also an option in the final encounters I had actually planned), but I think it worked well.

This game marks the end of my group’s play with Dungeons and Dragons. The shenanigans Wizards of the Coast pulled with the Open Gaming License has left a bad taste in our mouths, and even though they backed down in the end, I no longer wish to give WotC my money and my group has agreed to switch our fantasy tabletop game of choice. I assume, since you’re reading this blog, that you’re already familiar with what’s been going on in the tabletop RPG industry.

Unfortunately, this game also marks the departure of one of my players. Due to the demands of Real Life™, the player of Larx Voss (and the GM who introduced us to Savage Worlds, Blades in the Dark, and other games) can no longer play with us. Of course, if life circumstances change, he will be welcomed back with open arms, but until then, we wish him well, and I must begin Player Quest 2023.

In theory, finding a new player is easy. However, they have to be willing to start with a Virtual Table Top AND be local if/when we resume face-to-face play. They also have to mesh well with the group, personality-wise. We’ve had some players that were a good fit and we’ve had some players that weren’t a good fit. You never know for sure until they sit down at your table.

We’ve pretty much decided to give Pathfinder Second Edition a try for our next fantasy game (and it may be a continuation of this Ptolus campaign once the characters have been recreated in that system). We’re going to play a while with some 1st-level pre-gens to get a feel for the system, then, take a break from fantasy while I run some Fallout. After a short Fallout campaign, those who want to can recreate their Mask of the Fire Lord characters in Pathfinder at 8th level, and the Ptolus campaign will continue.

Note: I don’t get any royalties or kickbacks from HeroForge. I don’t even get kickbacks anymore if you go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing).

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Ptolus: Mask of the Fire Lord – Session 24

Posted on January 15, 2023 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Raven Withrethin, an elf rogue
  • Asclepius (Sklee), a yuan-ti pureblood paladin rehabilitated for civilization by the Brotherhood of Redemption
  • Loriwyn “Wyn” Thistlefoot, a gnome monk trapped in Ptolus during the Night of Dissolution
  • Larx Voss, a changling sorcerer

The Prancing Prowlers and Savane of the Shuul marched Tark the Gruff through Ptolus to their meeting with the Commissar. Due to the late hour, Dalengard’s sentries reluctantly allowed them entry and woke him. The Commissar was thrilled the group captured one of the cultists and promised to set his best interrogators upon the man to extract whatever valuable information he possessed. They adjourned for the night and returned to Rosegate House for rest and relaxation.

Upon arriving home, they discovered an elderly pair of half-elves camped in front of the house. The pair, Erevan and Sariel Dalathan worked for the previous owners of Rosegate House and had decided to wait for the new owners to return to offer their services in helping with upkeep. After a short negotiation, the Prowlers hired the elderly pair and retired.

The next morning during the breakfast prepared by Sariel, they discussed what to do next and decided to investigate one of the remaining spires. They elected to check out the spire in the Necropolis, reasoning that the best time to investigate that area would be during the bright, daytime hours, as it had a reputation for being overrun with demons and undead and it was known one did not go to the Necropolis at night.

En route to the Necropolis, the group stopped for some blueberry hand pies to sate Loriwyn’s bottomless stomach. They saw a man at the end of the street wearing cult robes drink from a bottle, then run toward a building. They charged at the man, hoping to stop him and nearly managed to bring him down before he exploded, showering the intersection with flames and himself. The nearby buildings caught fire. As Larx fought the fire with magic, Loriwyn whipped out their Decanter of Endless Water and used its powerful geyser to quench the flames before they spread while Raven and Asclepius helped the people in the buildings to safety.

Once the flames died out, an illusory visage rose from the embers, an armored man wearing a glowing helmet. He introduced himself as Flame Greydon and relayed a message to the Prowlers.

A man wearing black armor and a glowing red helmet.

Greydon, Flame of Imix

“Prince Imix cares nothing for the people of Ptolus. He neither wants them nor needs them. Anyone who wishes to leave the city, to relocate to a more pleasant locale, will be allowed to do so, and we will even make our conjurors available to facilitate your relocation.

“Prince Imix desires this Astral island for himself, and will see it consumed it flame. But that doesn’t mean you or anyone else in Ptolus must die. There are myriad worlds in the multiverse, throwing your lives away to save this small chunk of a city is pointless.

“I invite you to meet with me in person to discuss this, heroes of Ptolus. In one week’s time, my representative will await you in the Chamber of Longing. Meet them there between the eighth and twelfth hours of the day and they shall bring you to my sanctuary. Until our meeting, my people will cease any activities in the city. It will be as if we are no longer here. If you choose to not meet them, I will consider that a rejection of my proposition. I hope to see you in one week’s time.”

The Prowlers immediately changed course and returned to Dalengard to relay this message to The Commissar. While Tark the Gruff’s interrogation wasn’t yet complete, The Commissar and the Prancing Prowlers began to formulate a plan. The Commissar planned to marshall Ptolus’s forces and continue interrogating Tark, while the Prowlers gathered allies and researched what Imix could possibly want Ptolus for so badly. They tentatively planned to attend the negotiation as a way gain access to the inner sanctum of the cult, to end the threat, once and for all…

We had to talk about the elephant in the room: WotC’s proposed changes to the OGL. As a group, we have elected to continue this campaign, but when my D&D Beyond subscription ends at the end of the month, we will just update the characters manually, rather than using the tools to import them from D&D Beyond. It’s an inconvenience, but not insurmountable. Plus, we typically play a non-D&D game once a given D&D campaign wraps up, so we have plenty of time to find an alternative fantasy RPG of choice. Speaking of which…

I started a YouTube channel at the beginning of the year, offering media reviews and reading from my novels. There’s not a lot of content there yet, but it’s growing, so I’d appreciate your likes and subscribes if you check it out and find something of value there. I do plan to go over my thoughts on D&D alternatives as soon as I finish looking at my options and getting my thoughts in order.

Note: I don’t get any royalties or kickbacks from D&D Beyond or HeroForge. I don’t even get kickbacks anymore if you go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing).

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Ptolus: Mask of the Fire Lord – Session 23

Posted on January 11, 2023 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Raven Withrethin, an elf rogue
  • Asclepius (Sklee), a yuan-ti pureblood paladin rehabilitated for civilization by the Brotherhood of Redemption
  • Loriwyn “Wyn” Thistlefoot, a gnome monk trapped in Ptolus during the Night of Dissolution
  • Larx Voss, a changling sorcerer

Hiding in The Foundry’s warehouse, the Prancing Prowlers waited until the coast was clear, then emerged to poke around, looking for clues to tie the Shuul into the fire cult. The Shuul were no fools, however, and left clockwork guardians to provide overnight security. The group evaded some of the clockworks, bluffed their way past others, but ultimately were forced to fight a group of clockwork pugilists when they entered a restricted area even their disguises didn’t grant them access to.

In the secret underground testing area, they encountered Savane, the Shuul’s leader. He seemed displeased to hear that someone in his organization allied themselves with the destructive fire cult. With his help, they learned Yvara was too smart to leave evidence of her cult involvement lying around The Foundry and he took them to her home, to confront her. Once there, they saw she was meeting with two men dressed like other cultists of Imix they’d encountered.

A spinning gif of an woman clad in red armor wielding a pistol and wearing a huge maul on her back

Yvara of the Shuul

During the ensuing fight, Yvara escaped, but the group managed to capture one of the cultists, Tark the Gruff. The group secured their prisoner and took him and Savane to meet with the Commissar.

A couple of fights ate up a lot of the play time, hence the short synopsis. It was a good session, though and moved things along.

Of course, now there’s a big elephant in the room, for people who follow D&D, the TTRPG community, and the shenanigans large companies like Wizards of the Coast gets up to. The controversy centers around a new version of the Open Gaming License that WotC is creating in conjunction with the new version of D&D, One D&D. It is much more restrictive, especially in terms of third-party and fan content, and seeks to greatly monetize the game. There are much more detailed summaries available, but since the new OGL hasn’t been officially released yet (the information comes from a leak, verified by several reputable sources), there’s also a lot of speculation, conjecture, and outright misinformation.

My main concern is thus: if the new OGL kills third-party contributions, I’m worried for how D&D Beyond will integrate with my virtual tabletop of choice. Without the ability to use D&D Beyond with Foundry VTT, I would likely not have started this campaign. If those tools go away, I can still finish the Planar Ptolus game, but it will make updating the characters in the VTT a more manual process, i.e. less accessible. As long as the functionality I have doesn’t break (which it shouldn’t since Foundry lives on MY personal PC and I’ve shut off updates to the add-on modules which could be affected), I could even continue to run D&D games; I just wouldn’t be able to add anything new without doing manual data entry and coding myself.

This new OGL has the potential to drive a lot of smaller publishers of D&D materials completely out of business. Even if the new OGL is 100% horseshit, if WotC throws their weight around and forces lawsuits, there are a lot of publishers who do not have the resources to take WotC/Hasbro on in court. This could be very damaging to the D&D community.

I have already signed the Open D&D campaign, and I called Wizards of the Coast (425-226-6500) and left a strongly-worded, but polite message expressing my displeasure (you can see the post that precipitated that here). Will it make a difference? I doubt it. Word is, there’s been at least one publisher already signed on to the new OGL despite it meaning they give up 25% of their revenue over $750,000/year, so I think it’s already in its final form and the suits at WotC (who are from Amazon, Microsoft, and some company deeply involved in video game microtransactions; i.e. NOT people from the tabletop gaming community) don’t care that what they’re doing is building up a huge negative backlash towards WotC.

Time will tell and I may be once again searching for a new fantasy RPG of choice (of the ones I already own and have good integration with Foundry VTT, of course) once this Ptolus campaign wraps up, as I will not support a company that shits all over the community and creators who put it on the top of the heap for the last 23+ years. Having recently felt the sting of having a company deciding 21 years of loyal service was worth just throwing away, I have very little tolerance for shenanigans like WotC is pulling. People have built their livelihoods on the justified assumption that D&D would remain an open game (the original OGL was intended to be a forever thing, verified by the person who is responsible for its creation and several subsequent former WotC employees), and I do not look kindly on greedy capitalists deciding that it’s all worth burning down so they can make a few more pennies.

And hey, I started a YouTube channel where I offer media reviews and reading from my novels. There’s not a lot of content there yet, but it’s growing, so I’d appreciate your likes and subscribes if you check it out and find something of value there.

Note: I don’t get any royalties or kickbacks if you follow the links to D&D Beyond or HeroForge. I don’t even get kickbacks anymore if you go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing).

Categories: D&D | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ptolus: Mask of the Fire Lord – Session 22

Posted on December 18, 2022 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Raven Withrethin, an elf rogue
  • Asclepius (Sklee), a yuan-ti pureblood paladin rehabilitated for civilization by the Brotherhood of Redemption
  • Loriwyn “Wyn” Thistlefoot, a gnome monk trapped in Ptolus during the Night of Dissolution
  • Larx Voss, a changling sorcerer

The group started their search for Devin Flan at the warehouse that first brought them to his attention. There, they learned the Shuul no longer used that warehouse. The watchman pointed them instead to the Foundry, where the Shuul made their headquarters.

At the Foundry, they encountered Flora Nock. She claimed she hadn’t seen Devin Flan in a while and mentioned he seemed obsessed with and disturbed by some crystals he’d recently been experimenting with. While she went to see if the leader of the Shuul, Savane, had time to meet with them, they conferred and agreed Flora seemed to be hiding something. She returned to inform the group that Savane was not at the Foundry currently; he’d gone to the Temple of Tuen. They thanked the apprentice for her time and decided to check one more place, the Mystery Pub where they’d first met Devin Flan.

The barkeep at the Mystery Pub hadn’t seen him in a while either, but they were able to get from the man the location of Devin’s home and went there. The woman who met them at the door seemed eager to help, so she showed them to Devin’s room. His room looked like it had neither been ransacked nor recently occupied. They only thing of note they found among Devin’s possessions were a stack of notes showing his progress as an inventor. The most recent notes dealt with the fire crystals he’d acquired from the Prancing Prowlers. They kept the note and devised a plan to find the missing Shuul agent.

The Prancing Prowlers planned to infiltrate the Foundry by utilizing a cart to feign an order pickup and using Larx’s skill of disguise to impersonate Devin Flan. They purchased a cart while Ascelpius summoned his Paladin’s steed, then returned to the Foundry. By the time they returned, it looked like the day was drawing to a close. If they could hide, they’d soon have the Foundry to themselves, and they could poke around and look for clues at their leisure. So, they hunkered down in the Foundry’s warehouse and waited for the Shuul to end their workday and go home.

One of the challenges of GMing is when your players take a different route to go to the destination you have laid out for them. The game didn’t go completely pear-shaped, as it were, but they investigated some avenues I wasn’t prepared for and left other avenues untouched. But these sorts of things open new possibilities I hadn’t considered and they’ll bear fruit in the next game session.

Note: I don’t get any royalties or kickbacks if you follow the links to D&D Beyond or HeroForge. I don’t even get kickbacks anymore if you go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing).

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Ptolus: Mask of the Fire Lord – Session 21

Posted on December 5, 2022 by hccummings

Our Intrepid Heroes

  • Raven Withrethin, an elf rogue
  • Asclepius (Sklee), a yuan-ti pureblood paladin rehabilitated for civilization by the Brotherhood of Redemption
  • Loriwyn “Wyn” Thistlefoot, a gnome monk trapped in Ptolus during the Night of Dissolution
  • Larx Voss, a changling sorcerer

An old man let them into the bar. He shuffled back to tend to the drinks while robed cultists eyed the group with suspicion. They ordered a few beverages while trying to eavesdrop on the cultists’ conversation. In the idle chatter, they learned that cult Embers were inspecting the brewery and that there was a temple to Imix somewhere under Ptolus, in The Dungeon. According to the cultists, Flame Greydon was working with surfacers to summon Smoke and Ash, Imix’s Generals.

Taking the persona of Flame Uster, Larx demanded the cultists show him and his lackies to the brewery. They directed the group to pass through the doors opposite the bar. The group did so, stumbling into a pair of gelatinous cubes and two grey oozes that fell from the ceiling as they passed through the door. The cultists taunted the group, a Flame of Imix would have known about the oozes encouraged to hang around that area to deter intruders. While the group fought the oozes and the cultists from the bar, the battle drew the attention of cultists in a nearby storeroom, who joined the battle.

Larx once again attempted to command the cultists as if he were Flame Uster, throwing the cultists from the storeroom into disarray. Some attacked the oozes, as “Uster” commanded and others attacked Uster, whom they saw as an imposter. Eventually, once the oozes were destroyed, the battle moved more directly into the storeroom, drawing the attention of the Embers and cultists inspecting the brewery. They, too, joined the battle.

When the battle finally ended, the group was victorious and had captured one of the Embers, an Azer, and a cultist from the bar. The old man who tended bar had been knocked unconscious, but came to during the fight and escaped. They interrogated their prisoners, but learned little they didn’t already know. Larx and Asclepius conferred and decided executing the prisoners would be the wisest choice.

They checked the office of the facility and found a book detailing the cult’s experiments with the fire brew, learning that a potion of fire resistance would provide protection against the brew’s deadly effects, whereas combined with a potion of fire breath, the brew would have an immediate, catastrophic reaction. They kept the notes to pass to the Commissar and proceeded to the conference room. Another Ember, a salamander, was there conferring with a couple of cultists. They defeated the enemies and recovered a note from Yvara of the Shuul.

The fire crystals you’ve provided are fascinating. I was sad to hear about my courier, but if he is a detriment to our plans, then I understand you will do what you must to safeguard things.

I look forward to the demonstration. I will deliver the remaining components to the ritual site as soon as possible.

Yvara

They remembered a run-in with the Shuul when they first started investigating the cult and decided to track down Shuul Agent Devin Flan as their next course of action…

We were short a player again this week; my wife was sick. Another player had to drop out during the fight due to family issues, so we just stopped the game after they cleared the brewery. I doubt they would have gotten much further with all four players, as the brewery sequence probably would have taken longer with 4 remote players and all the delay caused by cross-talk and tangents (which I don’t mind, I’ve just noticed fewer players = quicker game play when we’re all remote). So, it’s all good.

I was worried at first if they aggroed the entire brewery, they couldn’t handle it, especially with the Heated Body abilities of the Azer and Salamanders (any melee attack that hits them causes fire damage back at the attacker), but the group acquitted themselves well and I think I could have made it even more challenging. It’s good for them to be able to stomp some opponents every once in a while, though, I think.

Note: I don’t get any royalties or kickbacks if you follow the links to D&D Beyond or HeroForge. I don’t even get kickbacks anymore if you go to Amazon to buy my novels (I used to be able to use Amazon Affiliate links for that, but I never actually made money from it, so they closed my account after several years of nothing).

Categories: D&D | Tags: , , , , , , ,

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